Soaking Up the Weather

Cold rain crashes against my window and the wind sounds a steady, ominous voice through the trees outside. Winter season has never been my favorite as I notice my emotions tend to flow with the weather. When all is dark and cloudy and rain covers the ground in gigantic pools, its as if my world becomes so much smaller and life closes off around me. Its a bit depressing, but I've learned to deal with it. In my days living in Seattle, I would bring my notebook and a pen (yes, a pen...) and hunt down a coffee house with a chill, ambient atmosphere. One of my faves was a place called Cafe Ladro on top of Queen Anne hill. Basically, it offered everything that Starbucks lacks in setting and feel. Or maybe I'd just go sit and do my laundry and watch the people busily slaving over their clothes, lugging them in baskets through the rain out to their cars. I'd sit and write for hours about the goings on around me or perhaps some new philosophical idea that happened into my mind. It was good times and a way for me to vent or get whatever feelings I had out and onto the paper.

But now, in school once more, writing is not for fun and neither do I have time to make it so. Free time is now spent playing computer games to try and distract my attention from my classwork if only for a brief and fleeting moment in time. I keep in mind that it's all coming to an end in a matter of months and that thought gets me through although I am not sure where I'll be or what I'll be doing after this ends. I find that thought both frightening and comforting. Its frightening because I have no stream of income yet bills loom large on the horizon. At the same time, its comforting, or maybe just casually interesting to me, that I will be free once again. I suppose that one primary thing I've sought for in my life is freedom. So school with end and I know I'll be somewhere doing something; no matter where or what that is I know that I'll be free to go after it. With my special someone still in school for awhile longer, I'll have time to find that dream and start down that road and have myself being just where I want to be and doing just what I want to do.

It all lies ahead in my future and it will happen. Just need to endure a few more term papers, essays, midterms and exams before it does. Jiayou! Ganbatte! Do your best! Keep on believin"!

The Daily News

What's on my mind right now? The same thing that I've been thinking about for the past four years is now mere months away. Soon, and before I realize that the time has slipped by, I'll be completing my MBA and off to work in some yet unknown business doing who-knows-what. I've been planning to get an MBA since I first went to Japan. Since then, I've studied for and taken the GMAT; applied and was accepted to a decent school; completed an internship in between years; and am now on the verge of ending up the whole adventure with a greater sense of direction for my life and the means to reach those goals.

One thing I am reasonably sure of is that wherever I end up I'll be in much better financial health. Student life grows tiresome. For example, my car has neverending issues. The front bumper hangs loosely on the right side, looking like it was taken out back and thrashed in an unfair bar fight. As well, I believe the fan-belt mechanism is slightly bent, causing the belt to squeal randomly. It needs an alignment, new tires and new brakes. But other than that, she runs great! Anyone interested in making an offer? ...

Which brings me back to my job search. In about a week I'll attend a Career Fair up in Portland specifically for MBA's and I'm just putting the finishing touches on my resume. I'm looking forward to that as a way to make contacts with people at firms that aren't Intel.

So, as this term plugs along and I find myself spending all my free time either sleeping or being used as a Dawei Pillow, I look out my window and wait for the rain to subside just enough for me to dash out. Places to go and people to see and I'm off and running.

Jack Bauer Style

The following takes place between 9AM and 9AM Wednesday thru Thursday, Jan. 4&5:

I awoke at 9am to head north for a series of meetings along the I-5 corridor, speeding like a brushfire. First stop was to meet the Mom, having lunch at T.G.I. Fridays. I arrived around noon and had a nice, large meal courtesy of a gift card she'd received for Christmas. Then, near 2pm, I rolled on over to an old friends place for a little catching up. We've known each other since undergrad years and somehow managed to keep in touch. Good times. Polance and I hung out and chatted and watched some spy movie, James Bond style, and all that jazz. And then it came time for my largest drive of the morning. Up to South Seattle to meet another old friend before she leaves the States once again for life in Japan. And just as I was leaving, I get a phone call.

It was my special someone. She sounded a little depress-ci, so I needed to make sure she was doing okay before I took off. We talked for awhile and it turns out that she was just a little bored and needed to talk for awhile. No worries. We chatted and by the end of the conversation, she sounded worlds better. Then, I was in the car and on the road again not long after.

I arrived at the coffee shop where I would meet my old friend ahead of schedule. We talked a bit and decided to head to Capital Hill and check out a place called The Baltic Room, a bar and night club I'd visited during my days as a Seattle local. So, I stopped to get some gas when I noticed that my head was bleeding!! I'd gotten a haircut in Portland after meeting the Mom and before meeting Polance. The guy must have nicked my scalp and it had scabbed over in the hours since because I seem to have scratched off the dried cover while heading to the gas station. I felt something wet in my hair and when I checked my hand, it was red with blood. I didn't panic, guessing it was from the haircut (what should I really have expected from a cheap and quick hair place anyway?) and i just continued on to the station. When I arrived, Paula, my pal, called and when the conversation had finished, I noticed a streak of blood running down the phone. Ewww! Like a scene from a horror movie, I'd gotten a paper towel to mop up my head and it turned red as well. The cut was a tiny little thing, but it was just dripping at a rapid pace. I couldn't even feel the cut but for when I washed up in the Arco bathroom it stung just a bit.

In sum, got a band-aid on the spot and that concluded the issue. Shortly thereafter, we went to that lounge spot I mentioned and chilled for awhile. We reminisced and caught up and all and left around 1:45AM. At that time, I checked my phone and noticed thirteen missed calls. Yet my "received calls" menu only showed one name: The special someone. So, I called her to see if she'd really called that many times. No answer. I left a message, not understanding why my phone only showed one missed call but told me there had been thirteen. Then, dog tired and sleepy as all that I dropped Paula off at her house and proceeded to find a nice place to park my car and crash. I checked the phone a few hours later and noticed four more missed calls. Again, the special someone but this time she left a voicemail as well. Unhappy, apparently with my questioning how many times she'd called, she sounded frustrated and upset. Well, I didn't want her to feel left out or ignored, so I called back but the phone was off. Then I made a tough decision: I would head back to Eugene right then. It was around 4AM when I left and I'd estimated it would be around 8:30AM when I reached my destination.

A long, dark and tiring journey ahead and one energy drink in the cup holder to help me get through. Cruise control and open road; my headlights the only source of light to be found on long stretches of highway. I rolled through the beginnings of rush hour in Vancouver, WA and Portland, OR at 6:30AM and thought about stopping. But the light of day had just begun to arise and I felt a bit of energy with it. I made it back to Eugene on schedule and surprised my special someone and told her not to feel guilty. She had been upset, but didn't want me to do something so risky. But I was up for it. Tired as I was, I felt that I had come as far as I could and if there had been any more to go, I would have needed to stop. But, as it were, I ran out of energy just as I reached my destination. It all worked out. And so there I was, back home and greeting my someone and then off to bed and headed for dreamland all within a 24 hour period.

Rollin' like Jack Bauer.

One Evening on the Train from Tokyo

Here's a retro-story about an event that happened about a year and 1/2 ago while I was living in Tokyo. Its worthy of posting, since I'd only ever sent it via e-mail back in the day. Enjoy and you just might learn something as well.
***
It started with my return trip from Tokyo Station at around 11pm on Monday. My friends and I had just spent the day at Disneyland and so I, like most other people at around 11pm on a monday, was dog-tired. The train ride started usually enough, cramped and crowded, with some guy wiping his freshly blown snot on one of the grips people use to balance themselves while standing. Then four or five business men in, what appeared to be second hand, navy blue suits boarded the train. From the bits of Japanese I understood coming from the loud, pushy, obviously drunken businessmen, I gathered that the loudest, most obnoxious among them was their "shacho" -company president. The rest were lackeys of some sort or another who assisted him to an open seat when it opened. His cohorts placed him in a seat next to a set of doors, near the middle of our car, from where he proceeded in his string of drunken babble loud enough to announce himself to those on the opposite end of the car. On a crowded Tokyo train this is not an easy feat, rest assured. Several stops went by before I finally caught an open seat. To my fortune (good or ill, Ill let you decide) the seat was spaced by two others between the shacho and myself. This is the point at which this particular train ride parted with the gross normality of life in Tokyo and became something ... more strange.

The shacho`s ranting became noticably louder, though it seemed impossible at the time given the decibel level of his bellowing before-hand. So, I looked over at the shacho to see what had irritated him so much more. I had been hoping to tune out the scene, as so many Japanese people are masters at doing, but I couldn`t. Not with what I saw when I looked over and saw this large, white-haired man screaming angrily into a lady`s ear that her typing on her cell phone had annoyed him. I just couldn`t believe it! For a few seconds I did nothing. Thinking, "How could she sit there and take this? Why doesn`t she get up and walk away?" But she didnt. She just sat there, typing, obviously disturbed by the belligerent drunk`s wailing. I saw one of the shacho`s lackeys waving at the lady to just ignore it, that the yelling would soon subside. However, a few more seconds passed ... no more than a minute in total since I first noticed but at least three minutes, I guess, since he directed himself at the lady. Well, I had seen just about as much as I could take. Without thinking about what I would say or do, I directed myself at the shacho from my seated position on the bench and spoke to him in English. Rather angrily myself, yet controlled, I ordered, "Stop yelling at her! Leaver her alone. Mind your own business!" And watched his face, in total shock, gape at me for another ten seconds or so before glancing around and saying something about either the lady or myself, I couldn`t tell. And yet the lady remained silent and unmoved. My neighbor, however, did not. Person #2 between the shacho and I also turned toward him and exclaimed, "Urusai!" (noisy!) and some other words I couldnt pick up. The shacho had been double teamed! And his lackeys remained in their respective positions but issued no defence. The shacho came to his own defence, eventually commenting that, "...men should not be sitting on the train, rather. they should stand and be masculine,". I`d have piped in again, but I figured that as he wouldnt have understood anyway, it would have bounced right off him. But that proved to be unnecessary as a man standing in front of me and to my right then replied ... something. Couldn't catch it, but with this new TRIPLE teaming, the shacho must have known he was beaten.

After the third man`s comments, the shacho occasionally made some side remarks to his cronies, but all yelling had subsided. During this time, I really wished I could just get off at the next stop ... run and hide in a sense. I could not and did not. Instead I prayed for a sense of calm on the train, and a calmness did come. But what amazed me most was that lady`s quiet resillience. When I disembarked a number of stops later she and the shacho were the only two left on our bench and she had not moved. She sat there, quiet and resolute, next to this man -though his lackeys had each disembarked by then.

As I write this, still in some sense looking for an explanation of what went on tonight, my tired mind trying to understand it. Only now do I begin to see the answer. In the end, I think it took my initial comment to break through the barrier that people in Japan put up all too frequently. One that bars others, or "outsiders", from daily life. I used to think that such building such a barrier was an inevitable part of living in a city the cize of Tokyo. Something needed to keep one sane. But, as tonight`s events have revealed, those barriers nearly let a self-important, pompous, drunkard abuse a young lady beyond any stretch of reason.

The moral? Well, I dont know if there really is one here. Nobody is perfect, so noone can judge or condemn another. So, I cant really say much more that I already have. Here are the facts. Draw your own conclusions.

Peace and goodnight.
Dave